Americana Partners LLC Grows Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Americana Partners LLC boosted its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 13.1% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 41,634 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,827 shares during the period. Americana Partners LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $11,447,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.6% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 142,202,830 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $39,685,966,000 after purchasing an additional 788,908 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.7% during the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,570,391 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,578,025,000 after acquiring an additional 626,618 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.4% during the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 18,863,796 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,264,508,000 after acquiring an additional 968,008 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after acquiring an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.2% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after acquiring an additional 312,286 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

V has been the topic of several recent research reports. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of Visa from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $320.70.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:V opened at $290.74 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.37, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $239.20 and a fifty-two week high of $296.34. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $281.00 and a 200 day simple moving average of $273.63. The company has a market cap of $529.82 billion, a PE ratio of 29.88, a P/E/G ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.17 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be given a $0.59 dividend. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.81%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 21.38%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares in the company, valued at $148,687.06. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.19% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Visa Company Profile

Visa Inc operates as a payment technology company in the United States and internationally. The company operates VisaNet, a transaction processing network that enables authorization, clearing, and settlement of payment transactions. It also offers credit, debit, and prepaid card products; tap to pay, tokenization, and click to pay services; Visa Direct, a solution that facilitates the delivery of funds to eligible cards, deposit accounts, and digital wallets; Visa B2B Connect, a multilateral business-to-business cross-border payments network; Visa Cross-Border Solution, a cross-border consumer payments solution; and Visa DPS that provides a range of value-added services, including fraud mitigation, dispute management, data analytics, campaign management, a suite of digital solutions, and contact center services.